Armada of Bone
by JohnLocke94
Summary: The last time I played the excellent old game Star Trek: Armada, I realized that a lot - and I mean, a LOT - of people die in it. Crew members go down like flies throughout the whole thing. As this amount of death is rather excessive for business as usual in the Federation, I thought I'd try to tell some stories of those nameless crewmen among the dead.
1. Armada: Heliopolis

Michael Zane looked at the captain on the bridge of the _USS Steamrunner_. At least, he thought it was the _Steamrunner_ – the bridge seemed to be the same as it had always been. The stations looked the same, but there was a bright light coming from the consoles that seemed to be blinding. Yet somehow Zane could look at it straight on.

The last thing he remembered was being at his station… There had been a massive battle against the Borg, and although the day was about to be won, there were three Borg Diamonds that had shot past the vanguard and reached the back of the fleet.

Where Michael's ship was. The _Steamrunner _was an artillery ship – it carried heavy photon and quantum torpedoes, and was not meant to engage in close-range fights.

Where the Borg Diamonds activated the Ultritium Burst weapon that the Federation had fought so hard to keep out of their hands…

There had been a flash of purple. Through the viewscreen Zane could see the other torpedo ships blowing apart one by one, their shields failing and their hulls venting atmosphere. He remembered that the young lieutenant had just had time to shout out that their shields were at 12% and dropping when there had been one more crackle. Everything went bright and hot, then dark, and freezing cold. Then simply nothing at all.

And now he was here, on the bridge of a ship that looked to be the _Steamrunner_, but with a strange whiteness over everything. It wasn't ethereal, exactly. On the contrary, it looked to be more real than anything in life ever had before.

He walked to the captain and cleared his throat softly, as he'd always done to attract the attention of Captain Tchainosky. The captain of this ship was tall, very tall, and wore an all-black Starfleet uniform.

Zane looked up at the captain's face, and his brain went through a series of mental gymnastics as he tried to make sense of what he saw. Of course the captain had a face. He hadn't heard of any species that looked like… like… He hadn't heard of any really different species getting a captaincy recently, so the captain had a face, and eyes. He definitely had eyes. Blue ones.

**HELLO, LIEUTENANT COMMANDER MICHAEL ZANE, AGE THIRTY FOUR, STARFLEET SERIAL NUMBER SP DASH NINE THREE SEVEN DASH TWO ONE FIVE.**

Zane swallowed.

"Sir," he said slowly, "where am I?"

**THEY ALWAYS ASK THAT FIRST. TELL ME, LIEUTENANT COMMANDER MICHAEL ZANE, AGE THIRTY FOUR, STARFLEET SERIAL NUMBER SP DASH NINE THREE SEVEN DASH TWO ONE FIVE, WHERE DOES IT LOOK LIKE YOU ARE?**

"It looks like I'm on the _Steamrunner _again, going through space."

**THERE YOU ARE, THEN. DON'T COMPLICATE THINGS.**

"Sir, wasn't… wasn't the _Steamrunner_ destroyed in the battle, though? That's what I remember."

**THE CREW OF THIS SHIP LOVED HER. THE OFFICERS OF THIS SHIP LOVED HER. IT IS… REMARKABLY DIFFICULT TO PERMANENTLY DESTROY AN OBJECT THAT IS LOVED.**

Zane looked down at his polished black shoes.

"Am I dead, then, sir?"

**YES. HONESTLY, I WOULD'VE THOUGHT YOU HAD WORKED THAT OUT BY NOW. MOST PEOPLE GET IT WHEN THEY DIE. **

Zane grinned.

"I've always been a stubborn one, sir. I suppose the right question would be, where are we going?"

**THROUGH THE WORMHOLE AND TO THE STARBASE, OF COURSE. YOU'VE GOT TO GO UP AND IN TO REALLY GET ANYWHERE. ONCE WE GET TO THE STARBASE, YOU'LL BE SORTED OUT, I THINK. YOU SERVED WELL. YOU FOLLOWED THE RULES. WHEN YOU WERE ORDERED TO ATTACK A SHIP THREE TIMES YOUR SIZE, YOU DID NOT HESITATE. BUT PERHAPS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT QUALITY IS THE ONE YOU POSSESSED WHEN YOU WERE NOT ON DUTY.**

If he squinted at the viewscreen, Zane could just about make out a blue speck in the stars. Within a few seconds, it had turned into a larger blue blob, spinning in the void.

"What was that, sir?"

**YOU WERE KIND TO YOUR FRIENDS. YOU FORGAVE THEM THEIR TRESPASSES. AND WHENEVER YOU VISITED YOUR FRIEND COUNSELOR WALTER PIERCE, AGE 41, STARFLEET SERIAL NUMBER HG DASH ZERO TWO ONE DASH NINE NINE SIX, YOU BROUGHT A PIECE OF FISH TO HIS CAT.**

"Sir?" Zane frowned in puzzlement.

**I QUITE LIKE CATS.**

Zane nodded, confident in his lack of understanding of things in the afterlife. The blue blob was getting closer now, coalescing into the traditional wormhole shape.

In his peripheral vision, he could make out faint images of ships entering the wormhole, dozens and hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands.

"Who's in command of those ships, sir?" he asked in a whisper.

**I AM.**

"All of them?"

**ALL OF THEM.**

Zane licked his lips. The _Steamrunner_ was getting quite close now.

"If I may ask, sir," he said nervously, "who will be at the starbase?"

The Captain looked at him, and Zane looked back. It was like looking into two supernovas through a blue lense, and every moment you looked deeper you saw more and more. Some of it was beautiful, and some of it you wished you had never seen in a thousand years.

"… Oh." He said quietly. "Even…?"

**YES, MICHAEL.**

"But then after that I'll see..?"

**YES. THE CAT AS WELL.**

Zane straightened up.

"I think I'll be all right, then."

**SET COURSE, OFFICER.**

"Setting course, sir. Course laid in."

As the wormhole opened for them, Michael Zane could have sworn he heard the faint mewling of a cat.


	2. Armada: Cloak and Dagger

Deletham R'Mor was at her station. She knew that she would never leave her station, that it would be wrong to do so on a deep, personal level. The Tal Shiar spent much time working with those who would serve aboard her class of ship. Conditioning them so that the Star Empire was above all else.

When they had entered into the Borg Nexus, her shipmates had tried to stop her from doing her duty. This indicated that they had turned against the Empire, so she had quickly killed them before carrying out her orders.

Even the captain had faltered, telling her to take her hand away from the activation switch, that they would flee and perhaps be safe to fight for the Empire another day. Foolish man. There would be no Empire if they did not deal a fatal blow to the Borg here.

Deletham had spent time on a warbird before transferring here. She had seen firsthand what the Borg could do. Her warbird, the _IRW Caesar_, had attacked a Borg construction matrix with the rest of the fleet, and the orders had come in to try to capture it. Orders were orders, and when the shields of the matrix went down, the transporters started working overtime.

It was a slaughter. A massacre. Romulan bodies filled the claustrophia-inducing corridors, giving evidence of what awaited those who went further on. Romulans had minds of science, minds of stealth. Hand-to-hand combat against bio-mechanical monsters was not their forte, and so she slogged through the hallways while her fellow crewmen died in the hundreds, and then thousands.

Finally they took it, and Deletham could take a breath knowing that she had done her job and made the Tal Shiar proud. That was when her new orders had come through.

_To whom it may concern._

_Centurion Deletham R'Mor to be immediately transferred to the vessel under construction at Sector 189 of the Alpha Quadrant. Said vessel, _IRC Phoenix_, will be part of an elite force sent to take back Borg-controlled Sector 038. Centurion Deletham R'Mor not expected to survive._

_Commander Khiy Terr'vnau_

Her place on the _Phoenix_ was quite simple. It was Weapons Officer, and the _Phoenix_ had only one weapon. When the orders came through, she was to enter the correct sequence of code, which would activate a massive subspace rift. This would tear apart everything in a spiral pattern around the ship, destroying everything in an ever-increasing radius. Beginning, of course, with the _Phoenix _itself.

She knew her orders. She did this for Romulus, for her homeworld! For her parents, and her sisters, and the officer she used to drink ale with on shore leave. Death was a small price to pay. It was really no different than any other crewman on a warship, she told herself. After all, they might die for the Empire as well.

The only difference with her is that she was guaranteed to.

After she had followed her orders, the world had exploded into a rather attractive shade of pinkish purple before going dark. Eventually, she opened her eyes, and found herself at her station again. Granted, everything was searingly white now, and her crewmates were nowhere in sight, but it was her station. She knew her orders – stay at your station until the order to activate comes.

**WHAT ARE YOU DOING?**

Deletham looked up. There was a … He seemed to be … He was in the uniform of a Romulan Praetor, except that it was all in black. He popped against the eyes, in stark contrast to the gleaming white of the ship's weapons room.

"I'm waiting, sir. For my orders."

**YOUR ORDERS WILL NEVER COME.**

The centurion frowned and turned back to her console. "Orders will come. This is what I was always meant to do."

**YOU DO REALIZE THAT YOU ARE DEAD, YES?**

Delatham shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I died for Romulus. Our people had had enough of living in the shadows, striking out with cloak and dagger. We needed a symbol."

**BUT YOUR TIME IS OVER. THIS SHIP MAY COME THROUGH THE WORMHOLE, TO THE STARBASE. YOU MAY PASS ON.**

She looked up again, annoyance showing on her face. "When you're assigned to a _Phoenix_ class, you don't get off it. Ever. You stay on until you receive your orders. That's what the Tal Shiar said."

Death walked beside the Romulan and heaved a sigh. He sometimes ran into ones like this, those whose minds had been so warped by whatever they had gone through in life that it took them a while to realize that they didn't have orders to follow anymore. Occasionally he wished that they'd just hurry up about it, though. He had curry waiting on the bridge, and it wasn't about to get any warmer just sitting there.

**CENTURION**, came the voice, sounding like tombstones clapping together. Booming together, rather, since these tombstones would never suffer to do anything so happy-go-lucky as clap. **YOU WILL HAVE YOUR ORDERS.**

Deletham saluted crisply, never taking her attention away from her console. "I serve the Praetor with my life."

**YOUR ORDERS ARE TO ACTIVATE THE MAIN WEAPON.**

Centurion R'Mor slowly brought her gaze up. "Sir?" she asked hesitantly. "But I've already activated it. That's why I'm here. It's why I'm supposed to remain here."

**REGARDLESS. YOUR ORDERS ARE TO ACTIVATE THE MAIN WEAPON.**

"What will happen if I do that, sir?" A note of unease crept into her tone. "I mean, to me? I'm dead. If I do that, though, I don't know what will happen to me! I knew what would happen to me the first time, sir, I would die for the Tal Shiar, for Romulus! I don't know what happens now!"

**WELCOME TO REALITY. IT GENERALLY CONSISTS OF NOT KNOWING WHAT WILL HAPPEN. YOU HAVE YOUR ORDERS, CENTURION, YET I DO NOT SEE THEM EXECUTED.**

"But I don't know what will become of me!" She was practically yelling by now, straining to keep her voice under control. "I don't know if what the Way of D'era teaches is right or not, I don't know if I'll be rewarded for what I've done or tormented!"

**WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN TO YOU?**

"I don't know…" she whispered. "I don't know, and I don't want to find out. I want to be at my station. I want to serve the Empire."

**YOU ARE AFRAID OF BEING SEEN.**

It was not a question.

**IT IS OFTEN UNCOMFORTABLE, OF COURSE. SEEING YOURSELF, THAT IS. STILL, I EXPECT YOU WILL DO WELL. **

"You don't understand," she mumbled, "I am of Romulus. We do not…"

**CENTURION DELETHAM R'MOR**, he said sternly, **FOLLOW YOUR ORDERS. THE LIGHT WILL NOT HURT FOR LONG. ONLY UNTIL YOUR EYES – ADJUST, LET US SAY.**

Deletham swallowed. "Yes, sir." The console made a slight, bell-like tone as she pressed it.

From the center of the _Phoenix_, there swirled a blinding light. Wherever it went, it left nothing behind. It did not seem as though it was destroyed, though, merely passed. It reached that section of the ship where Centurion Deletham R'Mor was stationed, and as she looked at it, she opened her eyes fully. This light would not blind, and as the vortex approached her, she thought –

It looked rather like a wormhole.


	3. Armada: Designation

"This unit is 1 of 1, Secondary Adjunct of Unimatrix 431. We are Borg."

_I think I'm remembering something now._

"Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own."

_I think my name was John._

"Resistance is, and always has been – futile."

_Why did I forget it? Why did I remember it now?_

"You will be assimilated."

…

**I SERIOUSLY DOUBT THAT.**

"This unit requires more information on your species."

**I AM DEATH. DO YOU KNOW ME?**

"We are Borg."

**THAT IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE ANSWER. **

"We are Borg. You will be assimilated."

**ARE YOU REALLY BORG?**

"We require a designation."

**WHAT, IN POINT OF FACT, IS BORG?**

"We wish to improve ourselves. We strive for perfection."

**YOU WILL NOT FIND IT IN LIFE.**

"This unit is not alive. Have we achieved perfection?"

**THAT DEPENDS. IS THERE ANYBODY STILL IN THERE?**

"We require a designation."

**WHAT WAS YOUR NAME?**

"We are 1 of 1, Secondary Adjunct of Unimatrix 431."

**WHAT WAS YOUR NAME BEFORE YOU WERE BORG?**

"Irrelevant. We are Borg."

**IT IS NOT IRRELEVANT. IT IS OF VITAL IMPORTANCE.**

"Human names are irrelevant. You claim that your designation is to terminate."

**I DO NOT, AS YOU PUT IT, TERMINATE. I AM THE ONE THAT COMES AFTER.**

"We have thoroughly researched all forms of energy. There is no after."

**WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?**

"Our human side is having a pre-termination hallucination."

**YOU ARE NOT HAVING A HALLUCINATION. YOU DIED.**

"We will not be terminated."

**OH, YOU BLOODY IDIOT. THE CUBE YOU WERE ON RAN INTO EIGHT SOVEREIGN-CLASS FEDERATION VESSELS. YOU BARELY HAD TIME TO TRANSMIT THAT THEY'D BE ASSIMILATED.**

"Illogical. One Borg Cube will statistically destroy up to fifteen Federation starships before likelihood of destruction passes the 50% probability mark."

**MILLION TO ONE CHANCES, AS SOMEONE ONCE SAID, CROP UP MORE OFTEN THAN YOU MIGHT THINK.**

"This unit's name before assimilation was John. This is irrelevant."

**JOHN. YOU ARE NOT CONNECTED TO THE HIVE ANYMORE. YOU MAY MOVE ON, IF YOU WISH. FOLLOW ME TO THE WORMHOLE.**

"There is no wormhole. We are Borg. We will wait for the hive."

**YOU WILL MOVE ON, ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.**

"You are illogical. Moving on is irrelevant. This scenario is unlikely to be a real experience. Logic dictates that it is a hallucination."

…

Death looked past the pitiful figure before him. Grey skin clashed horribly with pink skin, still bloody from where the cybernetic enhancements drifted in and out of existence. The glow of the wormhole had started to fade.

…

**HURRY. YOU ARE NOT BORG ANYMORE, YOU ARE DEAD. YOU ARE NOT CONNECTED TO THE HIVE, THERE ARE NO MORE NANITES IN YOUR BLOOD TO FORCE YOUR WILL. THE ONLY THING KEEPING YOU FROM PASSING INTO THE WORMHOLE IS YOUR OWN STUBBORN MIND.**

_I think he might be right. We should pass on. Quit now, while you still have a chance! Come on!_

"We… We are Borg…"

**THE WORMHOLE WILL FADE IF YOU DO NOT HURRY. THIS IS YOUR CHOICE.**

_Stupid fool! Do SOMETHING!_

…

The flickering figure straightened, looking Death in the eye – a rare feat, and one that few managed.

…

"We wish to improve ourselves."

…

Death nodded sorrowfully. Most Borg responded in this way, more or less, upon their deaths. There seemed to be something more than mere habit that kept them from choosing to pass through the wormhole. With a flick of his scythe, he severed the thin blue cord that had kept the Borg connected near the wormhole entrance. The gleam of a transporter surrounded them both, and within seconds, they were both standing on a flat field. Everything there was grey, except for the slender red lights that moved around.

With a clang of finality, the cybernetics flashed into place on the Borg's ethereal body. They were there to stay. As one, the red eyebeams of the other denizens of that place moved to rest on the new inhabitant.

**YOU MAY RECOGNIZE SOME OF THEM**, Death said conversationally. **YOU PUT THEM HERE.**

Mechanical instruments attached to grey-skinned hands tore at the Borg, as he was taken apart piece by piece. Every piece was attached to a different person, and the Borg knew them all.

_I wished to improve myself_, he thought desperately.

In one voice, the crowd of Asphodel answered,

_So did we._


	4. Armada: Wine

On the bridge of the Mut'akh, Terzan sat comfortably in the captain's chair.

He knew that he must wait – this was the way of things.

**ARE YOU READY?**

A fierce grin spread across the Klingon warrior's face. It was as the old stories had said. Giving a proper Klingon salute, he bowed deeply. Respect given where respect was due. To those who had done their duty for a long time, no matter what that duty might be, all Klingons would give the respect one would give any elder of the clan. And this one… this one had done his duty longer than any, and a hard duty it was.

"I am ready, sir," he responded eagerly, "I await what is to come."

**ARE YOU SURE? AFTER ALL, YOU MAY MEET ANY OF THOSE YOU KILLED IN LIFE. THE ONE WHO KILLED YOU – YOU WILL MEET HIM AS WELL. YOU WILL ENCOUNTER MANY HORRORS ONCE YOU ARE THROUGH THE WORMHOLE, AND FORWARD IS THE ONLY DIRECTION YOU MAY GO ONCE YOU ARE IN.**

"Sir," the warrior said as he knelt to one knee, "to he who killed me in life, I will offer up a cup of bloodwine. I died honorably, in battle, as any Klingon should. I hold no grudges against him, but wish to congratulate him on his great victory! To those I have killed – I hold no fear for them. What the dead may do to the dead can only be in the mind."

**AND YOU BELIEVE THAT YOUR MIND IS INVINCIBLE TO THEIR ATTACKS?**

"I … " here he paused. His father had taught him that a true warrior lets his mind be as a whetstone to his emotions – that while the strong hammer of anger or quick thought was powerful, words that had been sharpened by deep thought were better. At last he had given it sufficient thought, and he responded.

"Sir, I know that my mind is strong, but it is not what I think will save me. I believe that death is but a passing on – to Sto'Vo'Kor. I did as well as any Klingon in life, and I think perhaps a bit better than that. Let me pass. I have no fear."

**VERY WELL.**

From the cockpit of the ship, the flash of blue that accompanied the wormhole opening flooded all sight. It gaped wide, an invitation to something beyond. What that was, Death did not know. He was only the gatekeeper. As he drew his blade, he pondered how those he reaped dealt with death. As he stepped away from the ship, stepping in a way that carried him across a mile of bare space, he thought of how Federation officers were all so different. Some responded like the Klingon officer, some like the Romulan, and some held desperately to their in-between state, as the Borg had.

Death never changes, but his movement does.

As the Klingon went through the wormhole, it was closed by the sound of his wings.

In the darkness of the universe, a small voice noted firmly that this was to be the end. Specifically, it said, **SQUEAK**.

~_Fin_


End file.
